If I remember correctly, last year, for AROTC, the board met during the last week of Sept or the first week of Oct. The results came out during the second week of Nov.

I remember this, because the results came back JUST in time for my son's #1 school's early decision deadline. Luckily, he was awarded a 4 year scholarship to that school, so he sent in the ED application. 4 weeks later, the ED decision came back JUST in time (he was accepted) before the 1 month deadline passed before he had to choose which school he was taking his scholarship to (he got four year scholarship to #1, #3, and #4 school). By that time he passed DoDMerb also.

The timing was perfect for him. The rest of his HS senior year was very stress free.

If he did not get awarded the scholarship after the first board, it would have complicated the whole thing considerably.

I feel for all the students and their parents now that anxiety driven board season is coming up.

I may be mistaken, but I was under the impression that AROTC boards are following the schedule below which was sent out by Golden Knight battalion blog:
Here they are, your 2011 - 2012 Army ROTC scholarship board dates:

Deadline for documents for the first board 10 October, 2011
FIRST HIGH SCHOOL SELECTION BOARD 17 October, 2011
Deadline for documents for the second board 2 January, 2012
SECOND HIGH SCHOOL SELECTION BOARD 9 January, 2012
DEADLINE TO START AN APPLICATION 10 JANUARY!!!!!!
Final high school selection board deadline for documents 28 February, 2012
FINAL (THIRD) HIGH SCHOOL SELECTION BOARD 1 March, 2012

Only three boards again this year!

Not sure anyone would have been notified about anything yet...am I wrong? I'm new to this whole process, so forgive me if I'm mistaken!

I don't understand why do NOT make it crystal clear on their OWN web site how scholarship application and selection process works.

Why does it have to be the case that people are learning about this critical piece of information (multiple boards and their deadlines) through words of mouth? Applying for an earlier board confers SO MANY advantages to the applicant. Many popular battalions/schools run out of space in later board. Why are they NOT making it clear on the application web site that there are multiple boards and at each board scholarships are awarded, and here are the deadlines for each board, etc.

A hapless student who faithfully goes by what's on the web site will think Jan 10 or whatever date they are listing on the web site means, it works like all other deadlines are supposed to work: as long as you meet the deadline, there is NO opportunity lost by not submitting the paperwork earlier. This is how most college applications processes work with very few exceptions, and if there is a rolling admission, they clearly say so so that everybody is on an even playing field.

My son learned about all this early enough that it did not matter, but good candidate can find himself/herself seriously disadvantaged because s/he honestly thought that the web site provided all the information they needed.

A good friend of my son's, a year senior to him, did not know about this multiple boards process. Thought that as long as he met the official deadline, it would be fine, and later learned that all the schools he put on the school choice form more or less filled their slots during the earlier boards. He had no reason to believe that there was vast "underground" process that rewards those in the "know" of this unpublished process.

the scholarship processing operation is not a marketing or public relations operations. As the sales force we (ROOs or enrollment officers at the battalion) seem to be the only ones working towards getting the word out. As someone who has been taking some business courses lately I have come to realize that perhaps integrating some marketing into the process would be helpful...I don't see it happening, hence my blog is my attempt to do what educateme suggests.

Many applicants think that they can keep the blinders on and just do the application, and then sit home and wait and follow directions. As many have said over and over again, applicants need to talk to ROOs, and make themselves known to the schools. That way information will flow to them. The applicant I never hear from, but I continue to pass information to, never seems to pan out in the end.

Ahhh this is good feedback, thank you. My son has been wanting to get back to his No.1 school again sometime soon so he can show his mug around the unit, see the college in full swing and to talk with admin if he can get the chance.

If DoDMERB is down so often, how are NROTC applicants supposed to use it to check their status? I've read in old threads that it has historically been the first source for confirmation. Am I simply using the wrong site to access DoDMERB?